Since 1985, in various formats, SLANT -- an independent voice based in Richmond's Fan District -- has offered its readers original commentary on politics and popular culture, including cartoons and selected sundries. Warning: Sometimes that means satirical content. All rights are reserved.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

ThroTTle, 1981-2000

Throttle, the long-lived underground Richmond magazine, finally pulled the plug last week after several years on life support. A sort of who's who of artistic and unusual characters blurted out their
creative urges in Throttle's unpredictable pages during the past 19
years.

"Throttle
captured a part of Richmond that wasn't apparent to someone who was
passing through," said Anne Henderson, one of Throttle's mainstays.

Adherents
to Richmond's tired and trite reputation as a fossilized Southern town
have long ignored our unusual and often outrageous underground cultural
scene, a scene that was revealed and celebrated in Throttle.

For
example, some of the nation's most original/bizarre musical acts were
birthed here: GWAR, the Ululating Mummies, Richmond Indigenous Gourd
Orchestra and, more recently, the Floating Folk Festival and One Ring
Zero.

"Throttle's
unparalleled enthusiasm for the unusual," as co-founder Peter Blake
summed up in the final issue, mirrored an artistic hunger that coursed
through the streets and alleys of the Fan, Jackson Ward and Shockoe
Bottom during the'80s and, to a lesser degree, the'90s.

The burning
question: Is it just Throttle that died, or does its passing signal a
dissipation in our underground art and music scene?

Clearly,
there was a certain magic about Throttle's heyday. Richmond was alive
with local music, free-form "guerrilla" art, mimeographed literary works
and community art spaces, all of which fueled creativity and a sense of
unity while trampling traditional boundaries.

Many of the
ingredients of this creative stew were prepped at Virginia Commonwealth
University's schools of art, mass communications and social work. Bands
such as Single Bullet Theory and GWAR were hatched there, along with
artists Caryl Burtner, Phil Trumbo and Kelly Alder and writers Mariane
Matera and Terry Rea - just to mention a few on Throttle's unpaid staff.

Throttle
emerged almost directly from VCU in 1981 when Blake and Bill Pahnelas
(who later worked at The Times-Dispatch) left the school and its student
paper, the Commonwealth Times, still hungry for publishing.

Blake wrote
that they were "impatient with the established pace of the Richmond
news media [ahem] and thought we would make an effort to accelerate it.
With Jack Moore, Dale Brumfield , Mike Fuller and Jerry Lewis, we
launched Throttle, the Magazine of Acceleration for the Eighties."

There were a
lot of underground 'zines and comics in the area at the time (Boys
& Girls Grow Up, for example) offering a voice for hungry,
idealistic artists and writers.

"They
rarely lasted more than few months," said Rea, who has lived most of his
52 years in Richmond's underground. "The incredible thing about
Throttle is how long it lasted."

Throttle
was an irreverent mishmash that shot off in dozens of directions, like
the scene it represented. Cartoons, politics, prose, parody, music,
interviews and general weirdness were its staples.

"It's
nothing you can describe in any one sentence," said Burtner, an artist
whose work has been featured in Harper's magazine. "It was too many
things to too many different people."

She, like
many of Throttle's contributors, stumbled into the magazine while
searching for an escape from the boundaries she encountered in art
school.

"I was just
overjoyed, I wanted to do anything to help," said Burtner, who now
works in the Virginia Museum's curatorial department.

The names
of those with a similar hunger would fill most of this column. Some,
such as artist and musician Wes Freed, still are here on the edges of
the underground.

Most of the
rest have taken jobs in more traditional fields of publishing, art and
advertising. The artwork of Alder can be seen in The New York Times.
Rea, now a grandfather, writes for Richmond.com. Matera, possessor of
one of the area's most deft and cutting pens, recently became the editor
of the Mechanicsville Local.

The crowd that kept the scene alive "has reached the age where they've gotten married, had kids and moved on," Matera said.

Co-founder
Blake is now a budget analyst for the General Assembly's House
Appropriations Committee. He's married with three sons, ages 9, 7 and 3.
"Throttle was fertile ground for a lot of interesting and creative
ideas," he said. "We've been the venue for a lot of characters. I've
enjoyed them all."

No, the
underground 'zine scene hasn't died along with Throttle. Matera plans to
publish her Richmond Music Journal for at least the rest of this year.
There's also Punchline, which covers some of the same ground as Throttle
but has yet to establish the same local voice. There has also been the
occasional outburst from Poor Richmond's Almanac and assorted punk-rock
and alternative-music fanzines.

And yet, something seems to be missing from Richmond's underground.

"So much of
what was once underground has been assimilated," Rea said, echoing an
observation made by Burtner. "It's much harder today to find an edge."

What was
fresh, shocking or taboo during the early days of Throttle can now be
seen on television or at art shows, or heard on the radio. Nonconformity
has become the norm.

"I'm not sure if that's good or bad," Rea said. "But it makes me uncomfortable."

He's not the only one.

"We're all
kind of overwhelmed," Andy Cross said as he and a fellow VCU art student
checked out an opening at the 1708 Gallery Friday night.

Cross, 20,
has traveled to New York and London, probing for an opening, an edge - a
place to develop his voice. Exhibits such as the controversial
manure-coated Madonna, in essence, have eliminated the line between the
mainstream and the underground, he said. Anything goes, and often it's
too grand in size and too expensive to produce for a young artist to
consider.

"If you don't know what art is any more," he asked, "why would you care about getting a show?"